I think Budd Boetticher's Westerns would make a nice comparison, cavorting. Although some are considered classics now (especially the films with Randolph Scott), they weren't thought of as classics when they were released. They're not particularly groundbreaking, but they are very entertaining. I think the reason Breaking Bad is so overpraised is because the landscape has changed. Most movies and television shows are complete junk now--they're not made for adults, they're made for children and idiots (anyone see Under the Dome last night? Painful. The only reason I watched was because I thought Tom and I could joke around about it, but even that ran out of gas).
I recently watched John Huston's The Night of the Iguana again. I forgot how nuts that movie really was. But as I was watching, I was thinking it felt like something from another planet. I couldn't even imagine a movie like that getting made today. Can you imagine a director like John Huston, who relied on literary works for most of his source material (Fat City, Wise Blood, Under the Volcano, Moby Dick, The Dead, etc.), working today? Instead we have to be thankful for a few morsels that don't insult our intelligence (like Blue Jasmine, a sort of watered down version of A Streetcar Named Desire for our times. And Mad Men. And Breaking Bad).
